The season is still more than two weeks away but there is no time like the present to start planning for the coming fantasy football season. The single biggest dilemma facing all managers is planning for their player allocation by ranking the players in an order most likely to help your team win the league.
One of the most effective ways to do this is to settle on a handful of players that you expect to perform above expectations in the coming campaign. Ranking these well above their current ranking greatly ioncreases your chances of the game allocating those players to your team. We asked our writers to name their five to watch and will be publishing the results here over the coming days.
The first to respond is Nick Szczepanik, a football writer at The Times with a talent for finding future performers to match that of Arsene Wenger. He writes: "If Robin Van Persie (Arsenal) can stay fully fit, then he could be the major beneficiary of the sale of Thierry Henry to Barcelona. The two players often liked to drift into the same areas, and, like Henry, the Dutch winger can create and score goals, and this should be his best season so far.
"Sulley Muntari (Portsmouth) built a reputation as an energetic box-to-box midfield player with Udinese, and as Portsmouth’s record signing, is likely to play in most matches. He could be a valuable source of assists and goals.
"Andriy Voronin (Liverpool) has already impressed the harshest of judges - the bookies, who have cut his odds against finishing as Liverpool’s top scorer from 16-1 to 6-1. David Healy (Fulham) is Northern Ireland’s all-time top scorer by a street, and if he can score hat-tricks against teams such as Spain, then some of the Premier League’s less solid rearguards could be in for a shock provided that his new teammates can duplicate the service he got from Keith Gillespie at international level.
"The sale of David Bentley (Blackburn Rovers) could prove to be one of Wenger’s biggest errors, and it this writer’s belief that the England prospects of this cocky and skilful prospect are being harmed by the mistaken recall of some bloke called Beckham."
Fighting the desire to argue is the best approach here except to say that we'd take Beckham over Bentley but sadly he's not available in this game.
Comments (3)
I don't think Van Persie is all that and he's certainly no Henry.
Posted by Richard Best | July 26, 2007 10:27 PM
Posted on July 26, 2007 22:27
I am afraid Richard probably hasn't seen much of Van Persie live; this boy is the real deal and bookies are shortening his odds to 20-1 to be top scorer this season, which I can only recommend taking. He had the best goal to minutes on the pitch ratio last season, if he stays fit, expect a decent return.
Posted by Warren | August 1, 2007 11:59 AM
Posted on August 1, 2007 11:59
agreed... van persie was on fire for a while last season, and i see no reason for him to slow down at all this year, especially now that he will most likely be starting every game for the gunners... barring injury of course! (did I just jinx myself???)
;)
Tom
Posted by Tom | August 3, 2007 2:51 PM
Posted on August 3, 2007 14:51